Where did the cosmos come from?

[Tim]

So you don't have an answer then? What do you personally believe? Or do you just not know/care at this point?

I will take a look at the M-theory.

I do not believe in a god or supreme being.

I was raised in a baptist church, up until the age of 18 I went to church 4-5 times a week. I have had the bible taught to me every which way you can imagine. But as I got older and were able to ask more probing questions that did not have answers to them, the more I turned to science. I was a absolute without doubt true believer for many years... But there is one thing that bothered me more than anything else. Something that no pastor could answer...

How can a just god condemn a soul for all of eternity for such a short lifetime on this planet? This may not seem like such a hard question to answer until you start to wrap your mind around what an eternity actually means. To say that I will burn in a lake of fire and suffer eternally for a what I did in my life which is not even a blink of an eye when you are talking about eternity, tells me that there is no god. There is no one that is that cruel, there can't be.

 

[lumpenstein]

Yet another thread for an excuse to preach. Why don't you start your own church. I'm sure there are enough idiots that would join. Why are you fundies so obsessed with beginnings and endings?

 

[royalrainbow]

The cosmos came from.... the King of All Cosmos!

Sorry, I had to. I 'believe' in the Big Bang, because it's the most believable thing out there right now.

 

[dt3]

I think it is much easier to say that there is a God who has always been here than to say there is a universe that has always been here.

That's absolutely ridiculous. You can accept that one thing could have existed for eternity, but reject the possibility that another thing could have existed for eternity. For whatever reason, you're incapable of looking at the situation objectively. If you looked at it objectively you would see that both sides only have theories at best, and that neither one is capable of proving what they claim.

 

[SgtSpike]

I do not believe in a god or supreme being.

I was raised in a baptist church, up until the age of 18 I went to church 4-5 times a week. I have had the bible taught to me every which way you can imagine. But as I got older and were able to ask more probing questions that did not have answers to them, the more I turned to science. I was a absolute without doubt true believer for many years... But there is one thing that bothered me more than anything else. Something that no pastor could answer...

How can a just god condemn a soul for all of eternity for such a short lifetime on this planet? This may not seem like such a hard question to answer until you start to wrap your mind around what an eternity actually means. To say that I will burn in a lake of fire and suffer eternally for a what I did in my life which is not even a blink of an eye when you are talking about eternity, tells me that there is no god. There is no one that is that cruel, there can't be.

It is not by God's choice, but by our own that some of us go to hell. God cannot be with sin - it is against His very nature. So no one who has sinned can be with Him. That would be everyone. But that's why God sent Jesus to be with us - so that he could cleanse us of our sin so we could be with Him.

So again, the answer to your question is that God doesn't choose to send us to hell, we choose to go there when we sin and choose not to be cleansed of that sin.

Yet another thread for an excuse to preach. Why don't you start your own church. I'm sure there are enough idiots that would join. Why are you fundies so obsessed with beginnings and endings?

Way to bash instead of answer the question or post something else productive. :thumbup

That's absolutely ridiculous. You can accept that one thing could have existed for eternity, but reject the possibility that another thing could have existed for eternity. For whatever reason, you're incapable of looking at the situation objectively. If you looked at it objectively you would see that both sides only have theories at best, and that neither one is capable of proving what they claim.

The reason I reject that the universe could have been here for eternity is because of the law of thermodynamics. If energy is constantly being used, how do we have any energy left in the universe if the universe has always been here? The rules of thermodynamics obviously don't apply to God, so He can exist for eternity.



Still waiting for an answer to my original question btw... anyone want to take a stab at it, instead of trying to turn it into a question of how I believe that God exists?

 

[dt3]

It is not by God's choice, but by our own that some of us go to hell. God cannot be with sin - it is against His very nature. So no one who has sinned can be with Him. That would be everyone. But that's why God sent Jesus to be with us - so that he could cleanse us of our sin so we could be with Him.

So again, the answer to your question is that God doesn't choose to send us to hell, we choose to go there when we sin and choose not to be cleansed of that sin.

Who says noone who has sinned can be with god? God made that rule, therefore it was still his choice ultimately to damn people to hell. Also, by this line of reasoning, Moses must be in hell since he died before Jesus came. Or did everyone in the Old Testament, including Sodomites, automatically get into heaven?

The reason I reject that the universe could have been here for eternity is because of the law of thermodynamics. If energy is constantly being used, how do we have any energy left in the universe if the universe has always been here? The rules of thermodynamics obviously don't apply to God, so He can exist for eternity.

Why must you assume that everything we know about thermodynamics must be true? You use thermodynamics to say science must be wrong about the existence of our universe. Yet thermodynamics is science, so maybe you should consider that it may in fact be flawed. See the Catch-22 here?

Still waiting for an answer to my original question btw... anyone want to take a stab at it, instead of trying to turn it into a question of how I believe that God exists?

We're answering your question by showing fundamental flaws in the logic of the question.

 

[SgtSpike]

Who says noone who has sinned can be with god? God made that rule, therefore it was still his choice ultimately to damn people to hell. Also, by this line of reasoning, Moses must be in hell since he died before Jesus came. Or did everyone in the Old Testament, including Sodomites, automatically get into heaven?

Why must you assume that everything we know about thermodynamics must be true? You use thermodynamics to say science must be wrong about the existence of our universe. Yet thermodynamics is science, so maybe you should consider that it may in fact be flawed. See the Catch-22 here?

We're answering your question by showing fundamental flaws in the logic of the question.

God didn't make that rule. By His very nature, he is good and sinless, therefore he cannot be with sin. I don't know how to say it any different than that, but that is what is believed by Christians and what is said in the Bible. And Moses and the others used blood atonement from sacrificial lambs and other clean animals to cleanse them of their sins.

I never said that science was wrong - I just said that science by itself has no way to explain the beginning of the universe, which is true. And I don't think any scientist in their right mind would say that there is any possibility that the law of thermodynamics could be wrong or have exceptions. It's about as basic as the law of gravity.

 

[Tim]

It is not by God's choice, but by our own that some of us go to hell. God cannot be with sin - it is against His very nature. So no one who has sinned can be with Him. That would be everyone. But that's why God sent Jesus to be with us - so that he could cleanse us of our sin so we could be with Him.

So again, the answer to your question is that God doesn't choose to send us to hell, we choose to go there when we sin and choose not to be cleansed of that sin.

So the billions of people who have walked this earth who never heard of Jesus thus never accepted him to be their savior will burn for an eternity? Really? This is by the hand of a just and loving god? And I understand your argument that it's not by gods hand, but by ours that we will suffer. But I reject that line of reasoning. I have to reject that claim since god is omnipotent, that tells me that every one of these people that will burn in a lake of fire for eternity were intimately know by god before he even created the universe. And to be all knowing and all powerful yet create a universe where MOST of the people will intensely suffer for eternity is sadistic. There is no loving god that would do that, don't you see that?

Can't you see that ancient cultures needed to answer the tough questions that were asked every day, this is where religion was born from. It gave us purpose, community a sense of placement in this awe inspiring world. This is why there are many different religions practiced and believed, to account for the many cultures of people around the world. There is no unifying god that the world worships.

 

[SgtSpike]

So the billions of people who have walked this earth who never heard of Jesus thus never accepted him to be their savior will burn for an eternity? Really? This is by the hand of a just and loving god? And I understand your argument that it's not by gods hand, but by ours that we will suffer. But I reject that line of reasoning. I have to reject that claim since god is omnipotent, that tells me that every one of these people that will burn in a lake of fire for eternity were intimately know by god before he even created the universe. And to be all knowing and all powerful yet create a universe where MOST of the people will intensely suffer for eternity is sadistic. There is no loving god that would do that, don't you see that?

Can't you see that ancient cultures needed to answer the tough questions that were asked every day, this is where religion was born from. It gave us purpose, community a sense of placement in this awe inspiring world. This is why there are many different religions practiced and believed, to account for the many cultures of people around the world. There is no unifying god that the world worships.

I don't have an answer for that one, other than it is the insipiration for many people to continue translating the Bible into other languages to share it with people who have never heard it. But God also says that just looking at the world itself is enough testimony of His existance (which I completely agree with), and that the trees and rocks shout out His name (figuratively speaking, of course). I think that anyone who believes that God exists who hasn't heard the Bible or about Jesus would go to heaven, but that is just a personal belief. There is a lot of controversy on that subject.

I agree with you that religion, on the surface, seems ridiculous. Even Christianity seems absurd to my human and logical mind. But then, I start looking at all the proofs that the Bible is true, and I have no choice but to continue believing it. Archeological evidence exists from cities that existed that we never knew about until they were uncovered, and then they just so happen to match up exactly with what the Bible says. All the documentaries about Jesus match up with each other, to the point where it is agreed upon by any sane historian that he existed and was a real person. If he was a real person, and the gospels and other accounts came out less than 100 years after he was gone, why wasn't there an outcry against the gospels? If they were false in what they said, why did no eyewitnesses stand up and say they were false?

To me, there is just too much evidence that the Bible IS true, and that everything that is in it actually happened, so I don't see how I could NOT believe in it.



Still waiting to hear an answer for the original topic of this thread, if anyone wants to take a stab at it.

 

[dt3]

God didn't make that rule. By His very nature, he is good and sinless, therefore he cannot be with sin. I don't know how to say it any different than that, but that is what is believed by Christians and what is said in the Bible. And Moses and the others used blood atonement from sacrificial lambs and other clean animals to cleanse them of their sins.

I never said that science was wrong - I just said that science by itself has no way to explain the beginning of the universe, which is true. And I don't think any scientist in their right mind would say that there is any possibility that the law of thermodynamics could be wrong or have exceptions. It's about as basic as the law of gravity.

God didn't make that rule? So what you're saying is that IF god wanted to be in the presence of a sinner, he would be unable to do so? Wouldn't that then prove that he isn't omnipotent?

What about when god appeared to Saul (who became Paul) on the road to Damascus?

We know, by his own admission, that Saul was a terrible sinner:

I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it.

Yet god himself appeared directly to Saul:

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

If god cannot be in the presence of a sinner, how was he able to appear to someone as terrible as Saul?

 

[SgtSpike]

God didn't make that rule? So what you're saying is that IF god wanted to be in the presence of a sinner, he would be unable to do so? Wouldn't that then prove that he isn't omnipotent?

What about when god appeared to Saul (who became Paul) on the road to Damascus?

We know, by his own admission, that Saul was a terrible sinner:



Yet god himself appeared directly to Saul:



If god cannot be in the presence of a sinner, how was he able to appear to someone as terrible as Saul?

God isn't fully with us in this world. It's more like we have a telephone conversation with Him or something.

 

[The Joker]

Through our minds.

Sounds like something out of a storybook.

 

[dt3]

God isn't fully with us in this world. It's more like we have a telephone conversation with Him or something.

Jesus was in this world. According to the Bible, Jesus is god.

Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!Amen.

So, was Jesus not with us in this world?

 

[SgtSpike]

Jesus was in this world. According to the Bible, Jesus is godL



So, was Jesus not with us in this world?

Jesus was fully God but was not exposed to us in the way a face-to-face confrontation would be. The Bible says that no man can look at the face of God and live, so even though Jesus is God and was on earth with us, He couldn't reveal His full self to us, nor could He be fully exposed to us.

Hard to explain, so that's the best I can do.

 

[SgtSpike]

Also, I'm still waiting for an answer to the original question.

 

[dt3]

Jesus was fully God but was not exposed to us in the way a face-to-face confrontation would be. The Bible says that no man can look at the face of God and live, so even though Jesus is God and was on earth with us, He couldn't reveal His full self to us, nor could He be fully exposed to us.

Hard to explain, so that's the best I can do.

So I guess Jacob was a liar?

And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

 

[dt3]

Also, I'm still waiting for an answer to the original question.

I've given you my answer, neither side has any proof that convinces me.

 

[SgtSpike]

So I guess Jacob was a liar?

Nope - he was an exception. Don't ask me why or how, because I don't know. That'd be a good question for a scholar. And I'm noting it for further research because I want to know the answer as well.

I've given you my answer, neither side has any proof that convinces me.

Oh, yeah it wasn't directed at you in particular. I'm waiting for an answer who actually believes that the universe came from nothing, or that it has always been in existance.

 

[SgtSpike]

Nope - he was an exception. Don't ask me why or how, because I don't know. That'd be a good question for a scholar. And I'm noting it for further research because I want to know the answer as well.


Oh, yeah it wasn't directed at you in particular. I'm waiting for an answer who actually believes that the universe came from nothing, or that it has always been in existance.

Ok, figured it out. If you look at the rest of the passage, you'll find out that Jacob was wrestling with a man until dawn. That man was God, hence Jacob saying he had a "face to face" encounter with Him. It wasn't a true "face to face" with God though - it was just God in the form of a man, like Jesus was. So that is why Jacob survived. If God had revealed himself to Jacob in His full glory, there is no way Jacob would have survived.

 

[dt3]

Ok, figured it out. If you look at the rest of the passage, you'll find out that Jacob was wrestling with a man until dawn. That man was God, hence Jacob saying he had a "face to face" encounter with Him. It wasn't a true "face to face" with God though - it was just God in the form of a man, like Jesus was. So that is why Jacob survived. If God had revealed himself to Jacob in His full glory, there is no way Jacob would have survived.

So Jacob won a wrestling match with god? For some reason, I find that pretty damn funny.